Conventionally, it is known to utilize test elements such as gel cards or bead cassettes for blood grouping, antigen or antibody testing, or other related immunohematological applications or uses. These test elements commonly include a planar substrate that supports a plurality of optically transparent and vertically arranged columns or reaction wells. Each of the reaction wells retain a quantity of an inert material, such as glass beads or a gel material, that is mixed within a suspension having an antigen or antibody or is bound therewith. In use in automation, an upper foil layer of at least one card or cassette is pierced or removed, permitting access to the contents of at least one of the reaction wells of the test element for adding patient sample. The sample is then incubated and centrifuged to accelerate an agglutination reaction by means of column agglutination technology (CAT) in which bound red blood cells clump and are filtered by the inert material matrix. The cards or cassettes are usually prearranged and include a fixed and predetermined number of columns to enable a test of interest (e.g., direct or indirect Coombs test, Rh blood typing, ABO blood typing) to be completed.
There may be instances or examples in which all columns of a test card or test cassette may not be necessary in order to conduct a test of interest. However, such test elements, once at least one column thereof is pierced, are often disposed of and not reused, even if available unpierced reaction wells remain in a test element creating unnecessary waste and expense. Moreover, there are a number of situations in which varying the number of test columns is advantageous. Therefore, there is a need to provide versatility as to the types of test elements available, particularly in automated test apparatus.
There is also a general and prevailing need in the field to reduce the overall footprint of automated testing systems, including those systems that employ test elements, such as those that are noted above. To that end, providing any suitable means for reducing or economizing the size of a test element, for storage or otherwise, would be greatly desired.